Summing it up

Thoughts about children in scripture from Csinos’ paper. How does it change our thinking? What do we do with it?

1. Just as God gave children to Israel, a promise kept, children remain our God-given heritage – a reward from the Lord. (Gen 48:9, Ps. 127:3) How do I handle a God-given life? A God-given gift? A God-given reward?

2. Children are key players involved in community worship and celebration asking a most significant question that the adult faith community is required to answer. God wrote it into the script. (Exodus 12:24-28 NIV) 24 "Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' 27 then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.' " Then the people bowed down and worshiped. 28 The Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron.” They are commanded to celebrate and remember the day and what God did. Are times of celebrating what God has done primary tools for shaping, forming, and teaching children?

3. Children initiate conversation, teaching, story-telling. (Deut 6:4-9, 20-25) God engaged their God-given curiosity to shape their faith. His design for instruction was something that took place out of the classroom day after day as parents and children walked through life together.

4. A whole book of the Bible (Proverbs) reflects a father’s instructing his son. What observations can we make?

5. “Hear…” (Proverbs 1:8) How, over a child’s young life did a parent condition those ears to “hear…?”
a. Multi-generational impartation (Prov. 4:3)
b. How can faith communities facilitate parent to child teaching, training, and impartation?

6. What legitimate leadership opportunities can we give to children? (Isaiah 11:6)

7. When God gives pre-teens, teens, and young adults vision for His Kingdom must it be only “spiritual”? Do we water it down? Are we afraid to let them pursue it? Or do we look for ways to hear them and facilitate the vision God gives them?

8. What was it about Jesus that people welcomed and still welcome? Do we welcome children in the same way? The thought of Jesus deferring to a little child is a powerful thing. The Master Teacher – God Himself - calling on a child for assistance is, too.

9. Without targeting specific children, do we use child-like examples and stories about children to teach about the kingdom of God? (Mark 9)

10. “. . . [C]hildren receive the kingdom not because of virtues they possess . . . but for what they lack…” (Csinos, p 109) How do we cultivate a sincere attitude (not self-righteous, not false humility) that says, “I am not worthy,” yet “I am worthy,” both at the same time (in adults and children)?

11. We value children as children but also understand that childhood passes. (I Cor. 13)

12. The scriptures tell children to obey and honor their parents with a promise attached – that things will go well for them and they’ll live a long time. (Eph. 6:3)

13. “It seems as though Paul considers these children to be moral agents who have the ability to reason right from wrong.60 What is more, this discussion of obedience ‘in the Lord’ reveals that, like her parents, a child’s ‘relationship to Christ [is] that which fundamentally defines and qualifies her life in all respects.’61 Therefore, parents and children stand alongside one another in their appropriate places under God. In saying ‘in the Lord,’ Paul demonstrates that adults and children are on the same level—they are both under God.” (Csinos p, 113) A controversial statement. Yet the tension of opposites, children obey your parents in the Lord (Eph. 6:3) but “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4) is the strength of the relationship. The key component for the church is what does “in the Lord” mean? What does “in the training and instruction of the Lord” mean? Who is this God we look to as Father, Teacher, role model? How does He teach us? What do the scriptures reveal about this Teacher, His methods, the content He cares about? How do we see Him operating as Teacher in our own lives?

14. Just my own observation: This is from Matthew 25: 40 “ 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'” and 45 "'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' Culturally, this would have included children. It includes home, faith community, beyond faith communities, and it includes social justice. Maybe that’s the best way to sum it all up.